Your rest in the peaceful darkness of the bedroom is
shattered by the sound of breaking glass! At such a moment, would you wish to reach for a
copy of the Brady Bill or a loaded handgun from the nightstand next to you?

In their quiet moments away from the politically correct media I wonder if the victims
from the recent shooting in Atlanta, Georgia wistfully think things could have been
different if someone had a legally concealed handgun. We will never know
what the dead were thinking before they perished. By all accounts the police were on
both
scenes in record time. Not in time to prevent the slaughter caused by a
person bent on mayhem. Only those present in those fleeting moments of noise and
chaos had any chance of protecting themselves.

We are told that if only we leave the protection of our wellbeing in the hands of the
state will we be safe from such violent acts. Can it be possible for each and every one of
us to have an armed officer shielding us everywhere? In our homes, in our cars, in our
place of worship? Even if such a fantastic possibility were reality would we want it to be
so?

We are told the police are there to "preserve and protect" and it must be
true for we see it emblazoned upon the cruiser cars. Unfortunately it is all a
myth. The rude, harsh fact is that the police; local, state, or federal are no
more obligated to protect you than the man in the moon. The U.S. Supreme
Court has held on many instances that the police are in no way obligated
to protect either individuals or groups of individuals.

In a recent case the court ruled it is a, "fundamental principle of
American law that a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public
services, such as police protection, to any individual citizen."
[Warren v. District of Columbia, 444 A.2d 1 (D.C. Ct. of Ap., 1981)] In point of fact, it
is not the innocent that will receive any protection but, rather, those criminals already
convicted of crimes and held in captivity!

"The affirmative duty to protect arises not from the State's knowledge
of the individual's predicament or from its expressions of intent to help him, but from
the limitation which it has imposed on his freedom to act on his own behalf."
[DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services, 109 S.Ct. 998 (1989) at
1006.] And just what limitations are referred to in the court's declaration? Why the
limitations imposed by law to certain individuals, such as incarcerated prisoners,
involuntarily committed mental patients and others restrained against their will
and therefore unable to protect themselves.

Self-protection is and always has been the responsibility of the
individual, both legally and morally. Not only the law of the
land in modern times, it was recognized at the time of Christ:

"When the strong man, fully armed, guards his own palace, his goods are in
peace."  Luke 11:21 (RSV)

If we are to believe that our elected officials are both learned and moral, what
possible motive could there be behind their charged rhetoric and draconian legislation
regarding your constitutional right to bear arms? What possible reason could there be for
the government to pass ever more restrictive regulations regarding firearms and yet elect
not to prosecute those guilty of violating those very laws? As an example, the federal
government released statistics that show there were 6,000 cases where students were
expelled from schools for bringing firearms to class. Yet there were only 13 instances
where charges were actually filed against the individuals.

Knowing as they do that the responsibility
for self-protection is literally in the hands of the individual, the
powers that be consistently make it more difficult for law abiding citizens to obtain the
means to do so. Yet the massive number of "gun control" laws already in place
are rarely enforced. One of the loudest voices calling out for further regulations is
President Clinton who on Wednesday, August 11, 1999, recommended the pardon of
eleven convicted terrorists. Among the many crimes they were convicted of violating were
firearms regulations. There are skeptics among us that say the very reason
these laws are not enforced is that ever increasing gun related crimes provides a rationale
for ever increasing restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms with the eventual goal
of banning them from lawful ownership. If these rules were to be enforced
and criminals prosecuted and jailed there would be no reason for further anti-gun
legislation.

I'll leave it to the reader to make up his own mind about whether such skepticism is
justified. However, I want everyone from the store clerk to the soccer-mom to come to the
realization that the responsibility for their own preservation and protection is
theirs alone. And, as literally thousands of Americans learn every year, a
handgun is the most effective means of providing that protection. Every single instance of
gun violence has been brought to an end by the presence of another gun ... in the
hand of a law abiding citizen. The time to give this serious thought is now. Not
the at the moment you hear the sound of breaking glass in the middle of the night.

Any and all doubters, having read the above, may want to explore the actual
text of the case law cited. A simple Internet search will accomplish that. I encourage you
to do so.

More to the point, however, is the fact that any reliance on the police for your
protection from harm or death by necessity puts the situation squarely under the dictates
of local and state law. All crime in the end is local. Not only are there no provisions stating
that the police or other authorities have an obligation to protect individuals from
criminal harm, in most every state, what provisions there are relating to such failure to
protect are such as to prevent the heirs of crime victims from suing the state!
In other words, the legislatures have gone to the trouble of protecting their (the
state's) interest while specifically excluding any responsibility for protecting the
interests, namely the life and limb, of the citizenry. All the while bending to the
anti-self protection crowd and passing more and more draconian "gun control"
regulations.

Obviously this one document cannot attempt to explore and explain the various
individual laws in each of the fifty states and the territories. Fortunately someone else
has already gone to that effort.

In 1999, attorney Richard W. Stevens released, Dial 911 and Die.
This inexpensive paperback book (my copy is marked $8.95) covers the general laws
pertaining to the obligation of the "state" to protect its citizens and then
chapter-by-chapter explains the law for each state, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico,
the Virgin Islands, and Canada. He includes other related information as well.

I have no relationship with the author or the publisher and offer this information
strictly because I care about this issue. Dial 911 and Die should be available at
any large book store and if not, they can certainly order it for you  the ISBN
number is 0-9642304-4-5. Any online book site can get it for you and there is a web site
which includes jacket notes, an overview of the book, and other information about the
book. Even if you just want to learn a little more, I would suggest you click here and check it
out. You can also order from that site. Their price is $11.95 including S&H.